And what held the line until the hellcats got there????? Wildcats and P-40s taking on the most experienced IJ pilots.The hellcats went up against mostly later less qualified pilots but they did wipe them out no mistake about that.
Hellcats made their first appearance in Sept. '43. They were at the battle of Tarawa and onwards from there - pretty much for the entire island hopping campaign. In China / Burma, sure the P40 made huge contributions, but Japan had more than 660 experienced pilots (total claimed by P40) and they certainly weren't all dead by the time the Hellcat showed up.
To suggest that the P40 and Wildcat did the bulk of the work and the Hellcat pilots just faced a bunch of clueless student pilots in box kites is just silly.